Throughout the ages we have had many a Land Wars; many kingdoms rose and fell, but today, none remain. Today we stand on the ashes of our forefathers and proudly state: "We shall rebuild." And so we are.

I am here today to introduce to you one of the oldest, and in my opinion the best, games on Zelda Universe: Land Wars. I will introduce it is a concept, I will introduce our first game, and I will give a quick run-down on how to play. You shouldn't concern yourself with the rules for now: Just ask yourself the question, "Do I want to play a strategy game?" And if the answer is yes, and if you have the time, I encourage you to sign up. I can walk you through the rest later - it seems intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it, it is easy.

So what is Land Wars?

Land Wars, my friend, is a game that is one part Civ, one part Risk. On one hand, you are choosing a kingdom - or, more accurately, a "base" in a kingdom - and building it up into a military juggernaut. You can build forts, recruit units, develop tech, etc. within reason. Along with this, diplomacy -- namely, trade and alliances -- also exists within the game. The end goal is for your kingdom to own everything on the map (though joint victories are a thing). There are no other types of victories, you're #1 goal is to kill everyone else and take their land. Sounds fun right?

Land Wars is simple to play:

So, when the opening post of the first iteration of our official reboot comes into play, you're going to be hit with A WALL OF TEXT about how to play. Rules. Regulations. Guidelines. How to fight a battle.

Throw that all out of the window right now. It isn't important. You can learn how to do all that as the game goes on.

The basic premise of the game is this: You will have a template for your kingdom. Each day, you will have a number of project slots you can use to develop new technology, as well as a defined "recruitment total" you can use to recruit units each day. You will update your kingdom each day by increasing your troop numbers and increasing the number next to a project until it's full (cycling out projects as time goes on). It's fairly simple. The hard part comes in figuring out *what* you want to do, and that's where this game shines: It's extremely flexible.

Don't overthink things now. We can work out the kinks later. Just focus on the idea of how to play. It should take you no less than twenty minutes a day, unless you are writing a battle out (which will take a bit longer than twenty minutes, heh).

Land Wars is a time commitment:

Not going to lie. Land Wars takes a long time to play. Secret Hitler, which lasts for twenty-five days? Yeah, it blows that out of the water. We have easily hit three months in the past.

Burnout happens. It exists. And I won't blame anyone for dropping out in the end-game. However, this is a problem that can be mitigated. You will need to dedicate time each day to update Land Wars, but the amount of time is minimal compared to the time you would spend arguing with others in a Mafia game. Along with this, you don't absolutely have to update *every day*. If you can't get online to post for a week, or if you can't post for a day, then that's absolutely fine. Life happens! As long as you come back ready to play, you're good. We have contingencies for inactive players being taken out, but these tend to not come into effect unless you disappear for a longer period of time (>10 days) without notifying anyone that you will be inactive.

If you can dedicate twenty minutes a day to update your kingdom, you're more than able to play this. I say "time commitment" in that you will need to be around for a while. It should not take up that much time of your daily life.

Land Wars is stressful:

It is a stressful game. Think Mafia, but over the course of a couple months rather than a week or so. But that's okay. You do not need to dedicate all of your energy each day thinking about the game. Make your update. And then leave it. It'll be back for you at a later time - and it's a good idea to step back for a little bit.

Despite it's stress though, we've had a great community in the past. As it is, we have only three veterans that are actually active from the days of yore, but we are still friends to this day because of Land Wars. The chat thread has always been fun to mess around in - you can basically discuss anything you want while the game is going on - and the bonds you make with people while playing for multiple months at a time can sometimes be unbreakable. At the very least, you'll make memories that you probably won't forget any time soon: I know I, myself, remember bits and pieces of Land Wars all the way from 2010, when I was first starting out. It's just such a fun, unique time that if you can let the stress go, you will enjoy the game just from a meta perspective. The community is one of my favorite aspects of the game.

Land Wars Version 1:

So the main reason I'm making this thread is not only to introduce it as a concept, but to announce the first iteration of Land Wars in it's new form. We will be making a throwback to it's roots: The days of duking it out in a Zelda-themed location. In this instance, we will be playing in Termina. You can find a map below:

Each person will pick a base/area from Termina, and using the resources and units (enemies, as well as NPC races (like Deku, human, Goron, etc) will create an army/kingdom and duke it out for control of the world.

Right now we are looking at six total kingdoms: Clock Town, Snowhead, the Stone Towers, Woodfall, Zora Hall, and the Pirate's Fortress. You will control the surrounding areas with your "main base", as well. So Woodfall would have control of the territory encompassing Deku Palace; Clock Town would have Romani Ranch, etc.

The rules and such will be posted in around a week or so, but for now, I want you guys to just ask any questions you want. If you're interested in playing, feel free to say so as well. This will be the general discussion thread for Land Wars moving forward, and will likely be the hub of multiple games -- so get ready for one hell of a ride.

Looking forward to going to battle with you all. =)

Ask me for the clan test!

The post was edited 5 times, last by goronmario (Sep 4th 2017, 9:15pm).

Just as a note from one of the "veterans," the stress isn't constant. Yes, things can get hectic, but most of the game is just posting your daily update and then going off to do something else. Which I think leads to the drop-off in activity in the back third of the game but that's something Sol and I have been discussing--ways to make the mid-game less of a slog than it sometimes was. (And not always, mind you. A lot of times, that's actually when the game picks up.)

I think a lot of the midgame slog comes from people stopping posting updates - and also with regards to battles taking foreeever to be modded.

Hopefully the three vets (Zora, myself and Kol) can set a precedent with updating and prevent the midgame slog from updating, and with @Lysis offering themselves up [strike]as tribute[/strike] as an objective War Moderator, we may not have to wait literal weeks for someone to mod a battle (or get stuck when *everyone* is in the same battle). So. There's that!

I've also played around with flavor events as well, in the last reboot we tried. I think I might reintroduce it this game.

So for new people: (@'HarmonicalHero' and @Xenovent) I will be helping you create your kingdoms, so that we have no discrepancies starting out. I've found that it tends to be the hardest part for new people--

What we will end up doing is having everyone make a singular post for their update in the game thread. For people who need help with the update, they will simply reserve a spot in their first post, I will contact them and help them, and then they can edit their kingdom into that post whenever it's done. That way new people don't get to not pick their preferred base by way of being slower to make their template =)

Termina is actually one of the more memorable maps we've had in rotation. We've done Wind Waker, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess but imo nothing has shined quite like our Termina games.

Like, I think it was v11 or v12 of old Land Wars where just, CRAZY STUFF happened in Termina. It was so fun. Like, I was so frustrated at the time but looking back on some of the shit we pulled is just kinda like, hilarious.

I literally dropped the moon on everyone and killed them out of spite. And then got a rule put in place that we couldn't do that in games after that one. xD

You can do whatever you want as long as it is *realistic*. I say realistic, lol we're in a fantasy world, but what I mean is: You should have some basis in the world of the game for this thing to exist. It's gotta make sense. Otherwise, it goes.

Also, things need to not be overpowered. So like, you could make bombs, powder kegs, etc. - but a nuclear explosion would be a solid, solid no. And things like unbeatable robots, impenetrable mech suits, etc. - things that cannot be defeated - wouldn't be cool as well.

Also due to our numbers being fairly limited (the largest armies we've ever gotten have been around 20K, really), technology generally stays around the 1700s or so, firearms wise. So you can make like a rifle that you can reload super fast, but an automatic weapon like a machine gun or an AR-15 would probably be a no-go just because it a) takes away a lot of the strategy of things and b) the speed at which we would all lose units in the event of having these types of weapons would effectively put us all at a stalemate with one another, or, if only one person develops these weapons, make them impossible to beat.

In the past we have deferred to group judgement to determine what constitute being overpowered, but now that @Lysis is here, we will probably turn to her to decide (with us being able to appeal to her, of course). This would prevent us from locking someone out of reasonable tech just for the sake of it, or for us all agreeing to something ridiculous.. though she is welcome to accept the groups decisions as her own as well.